between how it is and how it should be
by Cassandra Mulder
Summary: He never expected Pam to show up at his door.


**Title:** between how it is and how it should be  
**Author:** Cassandra Mulder**  
Rating:** PG  
**Classification:**_The Office_; Jim/Pam; angst  
**Spoilers:** General season 3, I guess. I kinda have a gap between _Gay Witch Hunt_ and _The Negotiation _.  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine, but if you want to give me Jim, that would be fabulous. ;) In all seriousness, it belongs to Ricky Gervais, NBC, and anyone else who joins in the fun on a weekly basis. No infringement is intended.  
**Written:** April 14 - 19, 2007  
**Word Count:** 2835  
**Summary:** He never expected Pam to show up at his door.  
**A/N:** This is my first Jim/Pam fic, so please be gentle. ;) I'm a newbie to The Office, but I love it and this popped into my head, so I decided I had to go ahead and take the plunge. I also feel I must dedicate this to my friend, Liz , without whom the wonder that is Jim and Pam might never have come into my life. Feedback is love!

* * *

He never expected Pam to show up at his door, and he silently thanks God that Karen is out of town for the weekend. Otherwise, he would really be in trouble.

He's having a hard enough time gauging the amount of trouble he's already in as she looks up at him, her lips slightly parted like they always are when she doesn't quite know what to say.

"Do you want to come in?" he asks, as he reaches around to rub the back of his neck where he's starting to feel the tension build.

She nods silently, and ducks her head as she slides past him when he moves to let her in.

He doesn't know why she's come, but his heartbeat has elevated to a dangerously high level, and he thinks he might pass out as he watches her move through his kitchen.

It's an empty kitchen, which she seems to have noticed, and she turns to him, her hands spread, palms up.

Jim stuffs his hands in his pockets. "I haven't really had the inclination to furnish much of the place yet," he says with the slightest shrug of his shoulders. He suddenly realizes she has yet to say a word, and he briefly worries that she's gone mute.

"Are you okay, Pam?"

Her hands are clasped together in front of her now and she's looking down at them. "Not really," she murmurs in a voice so low that he's sure he's the only person on earth who would have ever heard her.

He looks around, unsure of what to do, but he knows that standing in a dim kitchen is the last place they should be having this conversation. Or any conversation, for that matter.

"Uh," he begins, rather eloquently, he thinks.

"Do you want to go into the living room?" she asks as if she's read his mind.

He swings his arm in that general direction, and she walks in front of him. Her face falls when she gets there.

"Jim, there's no furniture in here either."

"Astute observation, Beesly," he teases, but he swallows hard. He keeps hoping she'll just change her mind and leave, but there's something in her eyes, some new kind of determination, that says she's probably not going to.

"Look, we can go in the bedroom," he starts, feeling awkward. "Unless you can think of a constructive way to share a lone recliner," he says with a laugh. "There's furniture and a TV, and lots of light," he reassures, seeing that she looks as uncomfortable as he feels.

Pam nods, and he tries to stamp down the nerves dancing around in his stomach. She's been in his room before, but there had been other people around and there hadn't been so much… stuff between them.

He leads her down the small hallway and reaches for the light automatically, turning it on. The small TV set opposite his bed is already on, tuned to Leno like it was before he heard the knock on his door. He takes a few steps in and turns around, waiting for her to join him.

She's frozen in the doorway, the light illustrating things he hadn't noticed before. Like how the jeans and fitted t-shirt she's wearing look rather foreign on her compared to the blouses and skirts she wears to work every day.

Her sneakers are back, and they're still the whitest he's ever seen. The thought brings back a memory that makes the corner of his mouth quirk up briefly.

She steps into the room, and he finally notices what was off about her hair. It's down, the curls tumbling free around her face and shoulders, and he suddenly wishes he had never turned on the lights.

"Have a seat," he says as he gestures to the end of his bed and tries not to sound as strangled as he feels. All the smart remarks in his Repertoire of Great Wit are failing him now, and he wonders if he'll ever know what to say to her ever again. At least not until she pulls that hair back and puts on a skirt.

She sits down gingerly, as if the bed might swallow her up, and she looks a little lost, like she may have forgotten why she came here in the first place.

He sits down beside her, the bed dipping low beneath his weight, and she's not looking at him. "Pam."

She sighs and he wants to do something, but he doesn't know what.

"I'm sorry I came by so late," she says softly.

He shrugs. "I always stay up late on Friday nights. It's my non-rebellion against the world."

She laughs lightly. "I just… I needed to talk to you, and I felt like driving… And here I am."

"Here you are," he says with a faint smile since she's finally looking at him.

She becomes solemn, and his face falls because he knows what's coming next. It's been coming for months, and he's no more prepared to handle it now than he was the day he walked back through the doors of Dunder-Mifflin, Scranton.

"We never talk anymore, Jim," she starts and he hangs his head. "Not really. And you're the last person in the world I can stand to fight with. So when you're mean to me or cold, it's just… It's not right. Nothing at all is right anymore," she says and her voice cracks.

_Oh, crap_, he thinks as he sees the tears pooling in her eyes. He can barely handle _Pam_ these days, forget crying Pam. But his arm instinctively goes around her shoulders and her head rests against his chest. He closes his eyes and tries to remember why he shouldn't be holding her, but he can't.

She's crying quietly against his shirt, and when he says, "I'm sorry", she begins to sob. He thinks that should have made her better, not worse, but he pulls her closer, both arms around her now, his chin resting on the top of her head.

Her body is shaking, her small right fist balled up against his heart. He's not saying anything, he just holds her tightly as he barely rocks them back and forth.

He knows what he's gone through in the past year, but he's never considered everything she must have suffered, too. Not really. He's been so caught up in his own pain and bitterness that it blinded him to her feelings entirely. How could he have done that to her?

He had effectively wrecked her wedding; her neat, safe little future. Of course she felt that. Of course she was dealing with that.

All the time he has spent trying to block her out of his mind, his heart, and he has never truly stopped to consider that it wasn't only his entire world that was changed. He's never really seen the whole picture until now.

He hates himself a little for that, and his arms tighten around her as he closes his eyes, feeling them sting because he could never stand to see her hurt. Now he knows he's the cause, and that knowledge produces a knot in his stomach that he fears will never go away.

"Pam, I missed you so much," he says to the top of her head, at the risk of setting her off further. At least he sounds steadier than he feels.

"Me, t-too," she sniffles into his shirt, and he rubs her back in long, slow strokes that he hopes will help calm her.

The silence spreads out around them, but nothing else needs to be said at the moment. Her sobs quiet into soft, intermittent sniffs, and he waits patiently and holds onto her while she lets it all out.

She has finally stopped crying after the better part of an hour, and as she looks up at him he knows she can probably tell that his own eyes aren't exactly dry.

"That's one heck of a dam you had built up there," he says, as he tries desperately to get some semblance of footing back.

She wipes at her eyes, and looks around, presumably for a tissue, which he quickly jumps up to retrieve from his nightstand. He sits back down beside her, holds them out, and she takes one, wipes her face and daintily blows her nose.

"Yeah, sorry," she says.

"Don't be."

"I must look terrible."

He isn't about to confess how completely wrong she is, so he simply shakes his head as he says, "Not even close." She's beautiful, as always, with her lashes damp and her eyes bright, but he's on shaky enough ground already. He has to be careful.

All he knows for sure is that now that they've had a breakthrough, he doesn't want her to go. Not yet.

She looks everywhere but at him, and he knows she doesn't know what to do anymore than he does.

He latches onto the first thing he sees. "Hey, uh, you like Conan, right?" he asks and she turns to look at the promo on TV.

"Yeah, of course. I hardly ever get to stay up and watch him, though."

"Do you want to stay… and watch with me?"

Her face lights up instantly, but she tries to follow his lead and play it cool. "That sounds like fun, Jim," she says, and she looks more relaxed than he's seen her in months.

"Okay. I'll, um, make some popcorn and be right back. Make yourself at home," he says.

He stands in front of his microwave and wonders if he has finally, officially lost his mind. He has to be insane if he just invited Pam Beesly to sit on his bed, share a bowl of popcorn, and watch Late Night with him. He has to be. Guys with girlfriends don't invite other girls they're in love with to do _anything_. Sane people know this.

He tells himself it means nothing, because it has to mean nothing. He rips open the popcorn bag with a little more force than absolutely necessary, grabs the biggest bowl he can find, along with a couple of sodas, and heads back to his room.

He almost stops and doesn't go in when he hits the doorway.

She has strategically piled all of his pillows at the head of the bed and she's sitting on the right side (where he sleeps, go figure), propped against them, her legs stretched out in front of her, and she looks like she belongs there.

He wonders if it's too late to turn around, walk out, and somehow kill himself, because he's convinced that is the only way in which he will ever remove this image from his brain.

She frowns a little when he doesn't move. "You said to make myself-"

"No," he interrupts. "It's cool," he says, and he hopes his composure is draining back into him as fast as it had drained out. She's innocently staring at the television, but he eyes her suspiciously and wonders if the only reason she came over was to try to kill him. If so, it seems to be working.

He hands her a Coke and sets the bowl of popcorn between them like it has the magical ability to be some kind of barrier when it's just a bowl. She's already laughing at Conan O'Brien's goofy antics, and he tries to remember the last time he made her laugh like that. It's been so long he doesn't think he can.

He joins in her laughter, but mostly he tries to watch her surreptitiously from the corner of his eye. She's changed drastically since the moment he let her in, and he wonders if they were always just one emotional breakdown away from back to normal. He thinks it can't be that easy, but he's willing to let go of the details for now. Anything, as long as she's smiling.

The bowl and the soda cans are on his nightstand halfway through the show, and he sees her eyes drooping by the time the White Stripes make what seems to be their fiftieth appearance as the musical act.

Before he knows what is happening, her head drops onto his shoulder, and he sighs. This is not good, only it is. It brings back yet another memory (his Pam file is overflowing, and he's convinced that's why he will never, ever get over her), and he lays his head back on the pillows, allowing himself to pretend.

For one minute he wants to pretend that this is real; that it's normal. That this is the life he always wanted coming true. He has a great imagination, so it's not that difficult.

He doesn't hate his apartment, so he imagines that this is where they will live (with adequate seating) until he can afford to build her exactly the house she wants. He's not quite sure what his employment will be, but something that makes enough that Pam can focus on her art. He believes in her wholly, and he wants her to be able to follow her dreams. She's pushed them aside for too long, and he's determined for her to follow them.

They are, of course, married and insanely happy. It's not that they don't fight, but it's always over something completely stupid, and mostly so they will have an excuse to make up. Not that they need an excuse to do anything they do while making up, but sometimes it's just more fun that way.

He still doesn't know why only she is everything he's ever wanted or needed, but she is. She's the only girl who has ever truly I gotten /I him. She's the only one who will play along when he's about to die of boredom. She's the only one who knows exactly what he's thinking or feeling by an eyebrow quirk or a goofy face.

Well, that's it right there. They're just a few of the reasons he's never really going to want anyone else, and he knows the realization is easier to deal with when she's three states away. The feeling almost smothers him while she's sleeping on his shoulder.

Against his better judgment (which seems to get him nowhere these days, anyway) he reaches out and slides his hand down the comforter between them until he finds her hand. Her fingers automatically weave through his, and he keeps his eyes closed. He's afraid that if he opens them he might actually do something rational, and most of the last year has been way too rational for him.

Her hand is soft and warm in his, and he knows he's entered dangerous territory from which he might not be able to escape.

He doesn't know if he wants to.

He takes slow, deep breaths, and he hangs between how it is and how it should be. He decides he's a definite fan of the latter.

Pam's head rolls over to the side, and she's now situated about halfway on his chest. He knows he should wake her up; it's the right thing to do. But he can't help it. She's here and she's warm, and holding her while she sleeps is something he's wanted to do seemingly as long as he can remember. He is fairly certain there's no way to win this one. She goes, he's a dead man; she stays, he's a dead man.

If he's dead either way, he knows in which way he would rather go.

He's not planning on her staying the entire night, and he's going to drive her home when she wakes up because he worries about her when she's sleepy. She has a tendency to fall asleep anywhere, which means he shouldn't take this as a compliment. He doesn't care.

He leans back on the pillows, and manages to get his arm around her shoulders without waking her. She doesn't even move except to snuggle further into his shirt, and he's suddenly rethinking being here with her. Her hand lays over his heart, open this time, and he wonders why the rampant thudding isn't enough to startle her awake. He takes it with his free hand, entwining his fingers through hers again, takes a deep breath, and tries to relax.

He finds it isn't that difficult. She is curled up against him like this happens every night, and he knows letting it happen, not waking her up the instant she leaned on his shoulder, is going to haunt him every night after.

Even though he doesn't mean to, he drifts off, her head tucked under his chin, holding her hand. He's tired, not only in the typical way, but of worrying about what he can and cannot say to her, what he will and won't do. There doesn't seem to be any fight left in either of them, and worries can wait until daylight when maybe they will finally see things the way they should be instead of accepting them the way they are.

Finis


End file.
